Moderator: William Thornton
Timothy Bonney wrote:I'm willing to bet if some fundamentalist preacher hadn't brought up the word "inerrancy" some years ago the lay people wouldn't be demanding that anyone believe it because they'd have never heard of it.
I applaud the SBC's move to more diverse churches. I hope that diversity will move its way up to leadership.
Dave Roberts wrote:Second, the decline of SBC churches across the South, is the continuation of the demographic trend that was cited as reason for the takeover/resurgence. "Moderate conservatives" didn't have the strength to evangelize in a new context as did "fundamental conservatives," according to the Peace Committee's language. The truth is that neither group has found the answer to effective evangelism in the changing culture, and the old SBC culture died in the 1970's, that culture of support for churches and Christian values from the broader society. Both CBF and the SBC do fairly well in the cities, but the smaller cities and towns are often a wasteland of churches still looking to clone the great pastor or bring back the kind of church they had in the 1950's and 60's.
Religion Dispatches article by Paul Harvey wrote:Certainly convention leaders have made some notable moves: dissing Donald Trump on Twitter, expressing dismay at the support of Trump by evangelical writers such as Eric Metaxas (author of a recent, deeply flawed book that “explores the forgotten connections between faith-based virtues and the survival of freedom in America”), and avoiding the blatantly homophobic proclamations of the past.
Moreover, even the #NeverTrump stance of convention leaders is paired with, in effect, a de facto #NeverHillary position. In this view, both are “evils,” and there’s not a lesser of two evils. It’s as if this is an election between Darth Vader and Chancellor Palpatine. This draws a moral equivalency between a fairly conventional centrist politician (with some Methodist civic gospel leanings) and a dangerous demagogue.
That is perhaps an improvement over the position of many Republican leaders (which is, in effect, he may be the antichrist, but he can help with our agenda and anyway Hillary is worse), and a step back from the worst days of the culture wars. But it has yet to embrace the most inclusive design for American democracy, and has not yet found a political vision beyond the imbalanced equation that #NeverTrump also equals #NeverHillary.
Dave Roberts wrote:It's also going to be interesting to see how the Donald Trump style of rhetoric will affect the SBC. I'm already aware that his strength is a lot of traditional Baptists (not SBC leaders but pew-sitters) who are welcoming the xenophobic and racist comments that are there. I wonder how the SBC statements will play in Trump's southern state strongholds. Any thoughts?
Sandy wrote: I'd guess you are right about some Baptists in the pew. I've seen a few snarky comments about the convention's resolution on the confederate flag indicating some people may leave their church, or at least make that statement on a message board. Likewise, there will certainly be support for Trump and for his racist views as well, from within individual, local congregations. There are probably a few SBC churches that hold similar doctrine to the extremist pastor in Sacramento, and the guy in Arizona, who think that what happened in Orlando was God's judgment. I wouldn't say it's a majority, or even close to it.
Change doesn't come quickly, especially in Christian denominations. Much of what is changing in the SBC, aside from the leadership, is actually rooted in their belief in inerrancy and infallibility. It's hard not to push for racial reconciliation if you are also taking a high view of scripture. Likewise, there's no denying that what the Confederate flag originally stood for trumps any other symbolism that might be attached to it by the culture later on. But the SBC's view on same-gender marriage is also rooted in that same theological perspective, which is why it's not going to change, and outsiders like Harvey, Worthen, Wuthnow, Balmer, et al, ad nauseam, can't seem to figure it out. The dichotomy that Harvey sees while scratching his head over it would suggest that inerrancy really was the issue, as 30 plus years since would clearly indicate, and the conservative politics developed as a result.
Dave Roberts wrote:Sandy, I am very aware of what an old preacher told me many years ago He said, "Baptists believe the Bible cover to cover, just as long as they can keep it covered." What the folks in the pews believe has never matched what the leaders believe.
Timothy Bonney wrote:Dave Roberts wrote:Sandy, I am very aware of what an old preacher told me many years ago He said, "Baptists believe the Bible cover to cover, just as long as they can keep it covered." What the folks in the pews believe has never matched what the leaders believe.
And is that how Baptist decide what to believe? The pastor is to preach whatever the people in the pews believe?
Stephen Fox wrote:Senator Lankford from Oklahoma a patsy of the NRA assuming key role in SBC's ongoing alignment with the FAR Right. Pressler has to be ecstatic about what he has wrought even without a microphone. Criswell lives on in full glory.
http://www.ethicsdaily.com/southern-bap ... -cms-23490
Dave Roberts wrote:Of course it is.How else does a pastor keep his pulpit?
I first want to say that I have a real problem with Evangelicals/Pentecostals/Fundamentalists and the way they interpret the teachings of Jesus. They all seem to be determined that we should live by laws that were written thousands of years ago by two men (not God), and then follow the teachings of a man who did not know Jesus and a "prophet" what was living in isolation and exile after being declared a heretic by the early Christian church. They seem to have skipped the four Gospels or they would not be supporting a party that puts greed above all else, torture and war as objectives, and denying the poor, elderly, and children of this nation food, housing, and medical care. This group of religious zealots, and yes that is what they are, has taken over a political party to further an agenda that is nothing more than "Me First" and the rest can go die somewhere, not Christian values. If they were real Christians, they would be embracing the social justice and charity that the Democrats sometimes embrace more readily than the GOP because it is what Jesus would do (he was after all a liberal for his times).
Trump plays to this mindset because he shares it, whether he goes to church or not, and they go for it like fish to bait. This group of zealots like to hear him spout off and if he is not morally upstanding, well, truthfully neither are they. When you consider the number of scandals among conservative and Evangelical leaders over the last two decades, their demanding moral purity from a candidate is somewhat hypocritical, so by supporting a candidate that is anything but, they assuage their own consciences. Trump is as much a result of politics and religion mixing as Ted Cruz is or Marco Rubio is. When you have a mixing of church and state, and that is what this is, you get the kind of lunacy that drives nations into civil war or revolution. It is part of what led to our American Revolution and it is why freedom of religion is part of our Constitution. Our Forefathers were not always the wisest of men, but they seemed to foresee this day in our political lives, and so they did not support any one religion over another, but gave us freedom to choose. This is a freedom that people like Trump and the Religious Right would deny to everyone. It is why creatures like Trump, Cruz, or Ryan are so dangerous to this nation and why the Evangelical Movement just as dangerous. It is why they work together to within the GOP, and it why the Evangelical Movement can be held as guilty as the Tea Party for the rise of Trump. They cannot try to put the genie back in the bottle when all they wanted was to break the bottle to begin with.
John Sneed wrote:Let me say at the start, I don't care one way or the other about the Confederate flag per se. I had ancestors on both sides of the Civil War. My father was from Virginia down in the hills near the Tennessee border. My mother's family were railroad people from Pennsylvania.
But since the shooting in Charleston there has been a concerted effort (mostly coming from the left) to erase completely and vestige of southern history. Signs of it are all over, from South Carolina, to Georgia, to Mississippi and elsewhere, it is like the political mindset is to erase southern history and pretend it did not happen.
History is meant for us to learn from. Erasing history and pretending it did not happen benefits no one.
To me, this amendment is just one more piece in the overall puzzle to erase the South from the national memory. And that is all I have to say about that (apologies to Forest Gump).
Sandy wrote:All that culture crap is just romanticizing and idealizing some of the most unChristlike, valueless individuals and ideas that ever existed in this country. It should be outlawed.
Stephen Fox wrote:stumbled across it today at Barnes and Noble near Rome Georgia. Houses of the Civil War.
The home of Stephens, the LT Gov of the Confederacy in Crawford Co Ga. His story is fascinating breaks several ways in Sandy analysis of the legacy of the Lost Cause
Thornton will like it too
Stephen Fox wrote:Robert E Lee among them and a lot of poor Baptist farmers who fought because the "Yankees were down Here". Im glad my Great grandfather who is buried a mile from my house in Bama, fought with the Union as did Judge Frank Johnson's grandfather.
The Flag got revitalized and put back up on state capitols in late 50s and early 60s as resentment to Brown V Board of Education.
The Sad thing now is best I can figger Sandy and his friends in the SBC can't bring themselves to see what the NRA is now, which in effect is the latest Confederate Flag. The Flag and race baiting has morphed into support for the NRA and Assault Weapons and the SBC is no further along in standing against it than they were in the early 60s when the Confederate Flag went back up the flagpoles.
That is a legacy of the fundamentalist takeover of the SBC; same song different verse. Foy Valentine minus Pressler and Helms and my litany, would have the SBC at a different place now re assault weapons and the NRA. but as it is the leadership--see the rally to Trump's side-- is still in the woodshed with Joe McCarthy .
waiting on Ike to come give em a spanking
Also google Hal Crowther, The New Mind of the South, Oxford American.
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